from the others-might-beg-to-differ dept

Nearly two years ago, we took part in a wider discussion over the question of why there was no billion dollar pure play open source company. Much of the discussion, not surprisingly, focused on Red Hat, seeing as it's the largest of the pure play open source companies, and some had been complaining that it had not yet reached $1 billion in revenue, even as proprietary software players were able to earn much more than that. We highlighted, first, that a direct comparison didn't make any sense, because the business models were so different. The very nature of a company like Red Hat is to shrink the costs one has to pay, such that the market is redefined. Quoting Red Hat's CEO speaking to Glyn Moody:

He said that he did think that Red Hat could get to $5 billion in due course, but that this entailed "replacing $50 billion of revenue" currently enjoyed by other computer companies. What he meant was that to attain that $5 billion of revenue Red Hat would have to displace software that currently costs $50 billion. Selling $50 billion-worth of software -- even if it only costs $5 billion -- is somewhat hard, which is why it will take a while to achieve.

And that's a key point. The markets are very different. But I think there was an even more important point later on in that discussion, which is that it's wrong to think of just "pure play" open source companies as the open source market. It's really the equivalent of defining "the music industry" as solely "the number of CDs sold." That doesn't paint the entire picture at all. Because, as we've seen, as music has become more available (both in authorized and unauthorized means), it's built up the much wider "music industry" in massive ways -- jump-starting huge shifts in the industry.

Similarly, the importance and impact of the "open source market" is not in the companies offering up open source software, but in the companies using open source software to offer amazing things to the world. In other words, I'd argue that companies like IBM, Google and Facebook are clearly "billion dollar open source companies" (actually, much, much more than just a billion) -- because they all use open source software as the key component and key resource in building their business. Just as other parts of the music business used free music to boost their revenue, companies that used open source software built massive new markets and grew their own revenue streams.

Given that, I know there's a lot of folks talking about Red Hat finally actually hitting that $1 billion revenue milestone -- and it is a milestone worth noting. However, I think it's wrong to suggest that Red Hat is therefore the first "billion dollar" open source company. In fact, just as IBM, Facebook and Google really make their money by leveraging open source software to do (and sell) something else, much of Red Hat's revenue really comes in an ancillary manner to the software as well: from selling the service that goes with it. It's great that Red Hat is doing well, and certainly it presents yet another useful data point to argue against those who argue there's no money to be made if your key "product" is free, but I think it's unfair and misleading to claim that it's the first billion dollar open source company.

from the nicely-done dept

We've writen about Valve's approach to the market many times before. The company believes strongly that "piracy" is a service problem not a legal problem. It knows that it can easily compete with piracy by offering a better service, something that it regularly succeeds in doing. However, On The Media calls our attention to an absolutely fantastic case study found on Gamasutra, not (directly) about how Valve competed with infringement, but how it turned Team Fortress 2 from a fee-based game to a free-to-play gameand increased revenue twelve-fold.

Of course, over the years, we've covered other online games going from fee-based to free and making more money for it, inspiring more and more other games to do the same. But what's most interesting here is the level of detail. In the case of TF2, it's clearly not about "give it away and pray," but a careful strategy that really does seem focused on connecting with fans and being awesome while giving fans a good reason to buy.

For example, the team at Valve connected with fans in a really cool way. It put out "teaser trailers" with product updates, and then scoured feedback to come up with ideas that fans might like in the game:

[Valve's Joe] Ludwig showed TF2's Sniper-focused update as an example. Each content update started with a teaser trailer that hinted at several possible new items or features, and Valve developers would monitor the community reaction in the forums to determine which aspects caught the players' attention. "We found people in the forums talking about how cool it would be if the Pyro could light the sniper's arrows on fire. To be honest, we hadn't considered it, but we were able to implement it by the time the update shipped," Ludwig said.

In another instance, players picked up on a blueprint displayed in passing within the teaser trailer for the Engineer-focused update of a mechanical hand item. Ludwig explained that "[The players] didn't realize it, but they were indirectly voting on the content of the update. When the update shipped, it included that robot hand."

Separately, Valve was very careful and deliberate about how they "went free" and moved to offering in-game purchases. Recognizing that there's an unfortunate incentive to then make in-game purchases make the actual gameplay worse (such as by making it "pay to win") the team made very strategic choices about how they would have in-game purchases, such that they were never required to play the game how you wanted:

Once Valve rolled out the in-game item system, it needed to get the players used to the idea of paying for them. "This wasn't a change we made lightly, but it was something we had to do to get our game into the free-to-play business model," Ludwig said.

"They had never paid for an item in TF2 at any point in the past, and we weren't sure how willing they'd be to pay now."

Ludwig outlined the players' possible objections to the item store, the first of which was TF2 turning into a "pay-to-win" game:

"We dealt with the pay to win concern in a few ways. The first was to make items involve tradeoffs, so there's no clear winner between two items. But by far the biggest thing we did to change this perception was to make all the items that change the game free. You can get them from item drops, or from the crafting system. It might be a little easier to buy them in the store, but you can get them without paying. The only items we sell exclusive to the store are cosmetic or items optional to gameplay."

In other words, this was entirely designed around the idea of giving people a good reason to buy rather than a negative reason that makes them feel forced to buy. Too many companies (hello most newspaper paywalls!) seem to think that "forcing" people to pay is a "reason to buy." It's not. It may get some people to pay, but it pisses off lots of people. Valve carefully structured its business model here to make people want to buy.

But the real key here is just how much this effort increased revenue. Many people have assumed that taking a fee-based game and going free-to-play is really an "end of life" strategy to try to squeeze the last remnants of revenue out of a game, but Valve is showing it's not that at all. It was a strategic choice to maximize revenue. This is the same point we've made for well over a decade in talking about how to use free as a part of a business model to increase your market. When properly applied (which is not just "give it away and pray"), free becomes a revenue multiplier, and Valve's example of TF2 is really a perfect case study of how to do it right.